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#bout — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #bout, aggregated by home.social.

  1. Viktor #Bout, the Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death,” walked out of a #US jail almost two years ago in a trade with #Moscow for U.S. basketball star Brittney #Griner. Now he is back in business, trying to broker the sale of small arms to #Yemen’s #Iran-backed #Houthi militants.

    wsj.com/world/russia/putins-me

    #Ukraine #Russia

  2. How $50 for Ukraine led to desperate battle to free LA ballerina held in Russia

    Amateur ballerina #Ksenia #Karelina, an American and Russian dual citizen who celebrated the new year with a trip to Istanbul with her partner Chris van Heerden, a South African professional boxer, before heading to Russia to visit family, was 🔸arrested and detained by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on 28 January🔸 in her hometown of Yekaterinburg, about 1,100 miles east of Moscow.
    Karelina may be the latest victim in a chess match over detainees between the US and Russia, which dates back more than 15 years when, in 2008, the US Drug Enforcement Administration arrested #Viktor #Bout, a former Soviet military officer and translator, on conspiracy charges. Bout was eventually traded in 2022 for the WNBA champion #Brittney #Griner, who Russian officials had arrested for possessing vaporizer cartridges containing less than a gram of hash oil.

    In March last year, Russian officials arrested the Wall Street Journal reporter #Evan #Gershkovich in the same place as Karelina, Yekaterinburg. Gershkovich and the ex-US marine #Paul #Whelan, arrested in 2018, are being held on bogus espionage charges, according to the US government.

    In January, Moscow also arrested the English teacher #Robert #Woodland #Romanov, a dual US-Russian citizen, on drug charges.

    And now Karelina.
    Van Heerden is desperate to raise awareness and money for his partner’s legal defense and return.

    theguardian.com/world/2024/mar

  3. @theghostoftomjoad The ones complaining are just flat out racists. I agree with you about the trade. Bout did ten yrs. He’s long out of the loop & as you said to get back in he just displaces the creeps who filled his void. Worst case it’s a null. Best case the internecine fighting actually disrupts the flow a tiny bit. #Bout #Griner #BlackMastodon

  4. Victor #Bout did jail time he did not have "impunity".

    Even if he goes back into arms sales, he'll displace other dealers and won't necessarily increase net arms sales.

    Even if #Griner acted unwisely, she didn't deserve hard time (likely to have been in part due to her intersectional position in multiple targeted protected classes.)

    It was a masterful stroke of on Biden's part. Unlike TFG he saved an American. She is also BTW a star athlete. Bout is a nobody loser. We traded shit for gold